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Dom Robinson reviews
Universal Pictures Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 8241281
- Running time: 180 minutes
- Year: 1966
- Pressing: 2006
- Region(s): 0, PAL
- Chapters: 13
- Sound: Mono
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £14.99
- Extras: Trailer Gallery, Creating Trumptonshire with Gordon Murray
Series Creator and Producer:
- Gordon Murray
Narrator:
- Brian Cant
Music:
- Freddie Philips
“Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock. Telling the time steadily, sensibly, never too quickly, never too slowly. Telling the timefor Trumpton.”
And, like its compatriot, Camberwick Green, each episode runs for fifteen minutesand concentrates mostly on one of the individuals, after the clever into withthe two clock figures.Proof of its greatness also came with a dance single released in July 1992, A Trip To Trumpton,which made No.6 for Urban Hype.
Narrated by Playaway‘s Brian Cant, for this release there are 13 episodes compared totheDVD released in 2002which only contained 8 for no apparent reason, making the 2003 ‘Complete’ boxset sounding morelike it should have been done for going against the Trades Descriptions Act.
The ‘stars’ of Trumpton include Nick Fisher, printing posters for the localband concert, Miss Lovelace arranging a window display in her shop, the mayorkeeping order in the town hall and Mrs Cobbit hawking her cheesy wares in thetown square, ie. selling flowers. Oh, and don’t forget the fireman. Hugh, Pugh,Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub…. presuming I’ve got those names right.
The thirteen episodes cover the stories: The Bill Poster, Miss Lovelace& the Mayor’s hat, Mrs Cobbit & The Ice Cream Man, Miss Lovelace & the statue,Mr Platt & The Painter, The Mayor’s birthday, Telephone, The Rag & Bone Man, The Window Cleaner,Cuthbert’s Morning Off, The Plumber, Pigeons and The Greenhouse.
# “Y.M.C.A. It’s fun to stay at the…” # The programme is presented in 4:3 fullscreen, but for this release while they’vecleaned up a lot of the print scratches in the remastering, it still appears to ‘buckle’ quite often.This is very bizarre and not what’s expected.
The sound is in mono which comes across clearly enough.
However, there’s still only one chapter per episode which is very poor. When I make my own DVDs,recording programmes from TV, I add a chapter after the opening credits, one before theclosing credits and then spaced out at five-minute intervals as a minimum, which wouldmean each of these (at just under 15 mins) would have 5 chapters per episode.
One plus this DVD has is some extras, albeit not many. There’s a Trailer Gallery (3£mins)which, apart for one from this series, doesn’t feature the programmes you’d expect, so the line-up goesTrap Door, Trumptonshire, Lavender Castle, Postman Pat & The Great Dinosaur Hunt andLittle Red Tractor: Glorious Mud, the first two in 4:3 and the other three in anamorphic 16:9.
The other supplemental is Creating Trumptonshire with Gordon Murray (3 mins), an except from BBC’s Animation Nation,presented in anamorphic 16:9 with programme clips in 4:3 within the 16:9 frame. Both of these are thekind of thing you’ll watch once and that’s about it.
The menu has subtle animation and is scored with the main theme, making it look like the town’snoticeboard, plus when you select the options within it segues between with some characters walkingor driving about to the ‘busy’ music from the series. Sadly, again, there are no subtitles.
Trumpton is a truly unmissable series, and this DVD is an improvement on the last release, butit still needs work doing on it in terms of creating subtitles, sourcing an adequate amount of extrasand getting the picture right.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.